The March Jobs Report Shows Women Are Struggling

The March jobs report doesn't look great. Instead of the expected 180,000 new jobs, just 98,000 were created. Though unemployment fell to 4.5%, the New York Times called this "the weakest showing of the economy in nearly a year." And not all jobs are created equal. You will be shocked to learn that women, especially women of color, are still struggling.

According to the National Women's Law Center, only one out of every 11 jobs created in the past month went to a woman. Black women were 1.8 times more likely to be unemployed than white men, and one in three unemployed black women have been looking for work for six months or more. Single mothers are also 2.1 times more likely to be unemployed than married men.

Jasmine Tucker, Director of Research at the NWLC, says the report paints a complicated picture for women. "Men lost thevast majority of jobs lost in the recent recession. That said, the recovery'sgains went largely to men – with women's jobs recovering much slower," she said. "This was especially true for women of color as compared to white men: Black and Latina women continue to experiencehigher unemployment rates than white men."

She also reminded us that 98,000 jobs is a net number that doesn't account for job type or quality. "We could have lost 100,000 jobs in one sector with good paying jobs but added back 198,000 in a different sector with poorly paid jobs." But of those 98,000 jobs, women gained just 9,000. Most were gained in education and health services, while 30,000 were lost in the retail sector, which is largely made up of women.

The report speaks to how women are still left out of the workforce, and Tucker says that needs to be fought on all levels. Two-thirds of all minimum wage jobs are held by women, so "we could vote to increase the wages of workers earning minimum wage." We can also encourage legislators to strengthen equal pay legislation, and fight discrimination and harassment in higher paying fields, which so often cause women to quit or not apply at all.

The report comes on the heels of Equal Pay Day. In 2016, white women made 82 cents for every dollar a white man made, while Asian women made 87 cents, Black women made 65 cents, Latina women made 58 cents, according to a Pew study. Though you could also look at it as white men making an extra quarter than women, just for being white men.

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